


Kindling

by teaandcoffeeowl



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandcoffeeowl/pseuds/teaandcoffeeowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Roy was young, he loved fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindling

**Author's Note:**

> An alternative explanation for Roy's behaviour between the end of the anime and the beginning of the movie. Hope you enjoy!

When Roy was young, he loved fire.

There was something about it—the fierceness, the freedom, the red-orange glow burning against the sky. He loved the way it brought order from chaos, reducing everything into component parts; he loved the idea of leashing such a dangerous beast, of using it to better—well, everyone. Or at least their lives.

He knew not everyone loved fire as he did, and understood, because fire was a dangerous, damning thing; fire could never be controlled, not completely. And he loved that, too. He couldn't really be called rebellious, because he didn't care enough to rebel, but it gave him a secret, illicit thrill, the way people watched his fire and applauded, knowing that  _if I lose control, everything's going to burn_ —

Then came the Ishbal War.

No.

Then came the Ishbal Massacre.

By the time the war was over, he understood better than he'd ever wanted to. There was nothing about himself he couldn’t control, and nothing was going to burn, because fire was a part of him, a tool he knew how to use and specialized in wielding.

This point of view was working fine until Edward Elric came along.

It had struck him the first time he'd seen the Fullmetal Alchemist—but no, he hadn't been Fullmetal, not then, not yet. It had struck him the first time he'd seen Edward Elric, then; the boy had been out cold, but there was something about the way his features stood, even in sleep: a grim determination etched into every line of his body, and Roy had thought,  _this boy is going to be impossible to control_ .

His first impression was correct,  _beyond_  correct. Fullmetal was predictable—sometimes. Fullmetal obeyed orders—when he felt like it. Fullmetal did whatever the fuck he wanted to, all of the time. Of course Roy was better than anyone else could have been at commanding Fullmetal, and he was reasonably sure they both knew it; he got more use out of the recalcitrant alchemist than any other officer could have. But he was never entirely certain just what Fullmetal was going to do, just what orders he was going to obey. Roy could force the issue, of course—but not each time, and those few times he did just made the Fullmetal Alchemist more unpredictable on other occasions.

Most people thought he controlled Fullmetal. When he heard this, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or curse.

There was something about Fullmetal—well. There were many things about Fullmetal, but there was one thing in particular Fullmetal brought to mind, burning himself a place in the world. For the most part, Roy tried not to think about it; on the rare occasions he did, he couldn't help but hope that Fullmetal never encountered his own Ishbal, never lost his rare and blinding fire, never became—just a tool.

Yet he wasn't really all that worried. Despite the similarities, Fullmetal had something fire never did: a purpose. A cause.

Roy very carefully didn't think about what was going to happen once that purpose was gone.

Not everyone saw it that way, of course. There exists a certain sort of mind which didn't, couldn't believe there was anything  beyond control. Roy, despite everything, knew that was nonsense; many things are beyond control. But there's nothing beyond influence, and Roy had influence in spades.

For instance, he influenced events as much as he could to make sure Fullmetal never met those high-ups in the military who possessed that certain sort of mind—because the sort of mind which believes it can control everything tends to try to destroy things which don't fit into that worldview, and Roy was not about to just sit by and  _let Fullmetal get himself killed_ —Hell. Maes had told him, once, that he was irrational about the Elric brothers, and Maes had been almost right; he certainly cared about Al, but it was Edward who was the focus of his peculiar obsession, who...inspired emotions in Roy rather stronger than should probably have been inspired.

He was a sick bastard, but hell, he'd already known that.

And then Fullmetal vanished. He wasn't  _dead_ —Roy refused to believe that Fullmetal could die, not without at least  _saying goodbye_ —but he was gone. And he found himself missing Al, too, more than he'd thought—of course Al was still alive, but it truly wasn't the Al he'd known. There had been politeness in Al's eyes on the one occasion they'd spoken of Ed, and determination too, but no sympathy.

He'd been wrong about Ed, thought Roy. Ed hadn't been fire. Ed had been oxygen—too much of it might kill you, but none of will surely do the same.

Roy—wanted to break. But he couldn't let himself. He'd blown his chances of becoming Fuhrer—at least for now, and certainly for a good long while—but there was still a lot of good he could do. He'd lived through Ishbal and he'd lived through Maes' death; he could live through this.

That was when the dreams started.

He was still a military officer, still a Colonel, but in a very different world. And in a secret society, trying to accomplish the sort of things that the regular Roy had nightmares about; he was pretty sure the self he dreamed about wasn't quite sane, but it didn't matter, it didn't matter at all, because he saw Van Hohenheim and hear about his son, his son named Edward, who was from another world and had travelled to this one—

That was when he resigned his commission and headed North. He had work to do, and as long as everyone thought he was traumatized, they'd leave him the hell alone.

The first night he got there, he sat down and started thinking about a transmutation circle that would allow travel between worlds.

It was going to take a while, he knew. He had none of Al's careful genius, of Ed's quick brilliance and flashes of intuition. But he had nothing but time, and he thought of Ed and Al, searching for years for a way to get their bodies back; he could do this, too, he was sure.

He thought about tools, and purpose, and fire.  And got to work.


End file.
